investigating A-10C II Overhaul: possible comms problems

[baltic_dragon]

Hey guys, a hute A-10C II overhaul is out, but it is quite possible I missed some things - or they changed in DCS in the meantime. 

For the time being I see such example in M02. When you contact Prowler, you won't hear comms with him (6 lines in total) until he gets to Bravo. Not a mission-breaking thing, but letting you know. Apparently core code for the radios changed between me updating this mission and releasing the overhaul. I will fix it for next update. 

[Cheezemad]

I can confirm.  I am also unable to hear Beholder or Hunter 1-1 in M03 and I tried with having the ARC-210 set up with presets, or switching the frequencies manually.  Otherwise enjoying it so far.  Looking forward to the update.

[Swson]

I confirm ARC 210 is not supported by the campaign so as it is the only VHF mean available it is thus impossible to fulfill missions…..it is urgent changing that….for exemple in mission 6 it is impossible contacting echo 1/2/3 post 

Edited April 21, 2023 by Swson

[baltic_dragon]

Impossible, unless it was recently broken. I tested all the missions after I updated them and had no problems with VHF radio. The only issue I can confirm is that FM radio transmission in some missions doesn't work, because of changes in DCS logic behind the scenes. But I am 100% positive the VHF frequence on ARC210 works @Swson. I'll have a look when I get home though.

[maki7266]

Good evening, I confirm a problem with the ARC 210. For example, Mission 06, impossible to contact overlord (144.4VHF). I also think that the frequencies are not good between the kneeboard and the mission docs (it's not the same).

[zaphat]

I am on M04 myself, the radio is working for me.

I however have been having problems deciding between AM and FM, best example so far was M03. (Using the provided pdfs for reference and M03 doesn't state this info).
Is it possible that you guys missed the same thing?

To tell you the truth, I usually don't even know which radio to use, now that the new radio can cover all the bands.

 

Edited April 21, 2023 by zaphat

[Swson]

I confirm the problem with VHF of Arc 210. The only thing I can add because I’ve discovered it in another A10CII campaign from another maker is that if you didn’t succeed getting the com with somebody while being on the right frequency you must manually change the frequency on the ARC210  then redo the correct value. In some occasion this helped me getting answer from the ATC but it was in another campaign. In this one, as an example, when I programmed 142,3MHz on Arc 210 in mission 6 because I was asked to do it then push space bar to contact echo 1/2/3 I obtained no answer. Idem when on the return path I would logically have to be contacted by echo 2 for support. I know that because I’ve already bought and played the enemy within first version with the former radio configuration without the ARC210 but another VHF. So I bought also the 3.0 version because it was told many missions have been rewritten. Frankly speaking at least until mission 6, I would not say fully rewritten but moreover cleaned and enhanced ….I admit however this must have generated quite a lot of work but with the introduction of the ARC210, many problems seems  to appear  with com in this 3.0 campaign making it not usable while the first version is also fully unusable with A10CII while having been bought few time before it was cancelled from the purchase list.

of course it can also be a wrong frequency value between the one in the kneeboard, the doc and the good one in the game…..

Edited April 21, 2023 by Swson

[Cheezemad]

More on this - it just appears to be an AM/FM thing.  For example, in mission 3 the MDC indicates an FM frequency, but if you set the ARC-210 to AM, it works.  Likely a bug with the ARC-210.  I am really digging this campaign!  Great work BD!

[baltic_dragon]

Thanks! Yeah, I think for FM just use the bottom radio and things should be fine for most part. For the ARC-210 only AM and UHF. 

[Emuyen]

Honestly, it would be easier if the radios are managed like in the Iron Flag campaign.

FM - for Flight / Wingman communication

UHF - for communication with Overlord etc.

AM - Guard and in this campaign ATC or other participants

As mentioned earlier: The PDF documentation does not always state whether FM or AM is required. On the ARC-210 the mode must be selected manually.

As always, fantastic campaign! Thank you!

[baltic_dragon]

@Emuyen it was like this and worked fine, but then ED changed something and FM radio will mess up the AI comms with Tower and AWACS. Since I don't have custom ATC in this campaign, I had to redo all the radio logic for the whole thing unfortunately. I have a few notes / things to fix so I'll have them ready for the next DCS update. 

[Odessa]

A-10C also still has weird issue with comms. 

In Mission 1 I could talk to tower but wing-man ignored commands  ( I tried to order "Anchor here")
In Mission 2 I cannot get anything from Tower. I asked for permission to start up engine.
ED standard mission "Free fly. Cold start up" works though.

As I understand A-10C is not tested and supported anymore. Correct?
So if I want to play this campaign  - do I need "A-10C II"?
I wanted to buy "A-10C II" anyway so one more reason

Edited June 1, 2023 by Odessa

[baltic_dragon]

Hey! Yes, I have updated only the A-10C II version, as keeping both running is getting more and more difficult. I'll ask ED to remove the old A-10 version because it takes too much time to constantly update two versions of the campaign, which at this point differ because of frequencies etc. In A-10C II all should work fine, just submitted some final fixes for it. 

[Odessa]

Thanks, yes,  A-10C II can call tower in Mission 2.
Old A-10C could not.

Time to play TEW 3.0 in A-10C II with a helmet-mounted display
 

Edited June 1, 2023 by Odessa

[Emuyen]

On 5/29/2023 at 9:26 AM, baltic_dragon said:

@Emuyen it was like this and worked fine, but then ED changed something and FM radio will mess up the AI comms with Tower and AWACS. Since I don't have custom ATC in this campaign, I had to redo all the radio logic for the whole thing unfortunately. I have a few notes / things to fix so I'll have them ready for the next DCS update. 

Thank you Baltic for the superb work and the recent updates.

Really enjoying this campaign.

[flyingeye]

please ignore

Edited August 25, 2023 by flyingeye

[nazradu]

I just stumbled over the AM FM confusion as I started the TEW3 campaign again with the A-10C II. I think the easiest way to avoid this kind of confusion would be to give the modulation in mission briefing/kneeboard.

@baltic_dragon

I don't know how you manage it in your campaigns now, but I think it would be better to make sure the player has set correct frequency and only proceed if he has. If it's possible to set a flag in case the correct frequency is set I would do something like

If (frequency is set){

Play Mission Radio Call

}Else {

Play "Damn I got the wrong frequency" Message }

Just having no radio call and no message at all is a bad experience.

[Tom Kazansky]

21 hours ago, nazradu said:

I just stumbled over the AM FM confusion as I started the TEW3 campaign again with the A-10C II. I think the easiest way to avoid this kind of confusion would be to give the modulation in mission briefing/kneeboard.

+1

love the campaign so far, but it would be very much appreciated to have the "FM/AM"s (correctly) in the briefings and kneeboards.

(stable DCS user here)

edit:

is there a way to get e.g. 144.3 and 142.3 of Mission 3 with any other radio than ARC-210? I did not hear "Beholder" or "Hunter 1-1" at the briefed frequencies with the ARC-210.

edit2: Tried again and finally heard Hunter 1-1 on 144.3 AM with the ARC 210.

Edited September 25, 2023 by Tom Kazansky

[baltic_dragon]

You can't really use FM for anything else than two digit frequencies (so 30.0 etc). Anything higher than that will require AM modulation AFAIK. 

[Tom Kazansky]

2 hours ago, baltic_dragon said:

You can't really use FM for anything else than two digit frequencies (so 30.0 etc). Anything higher than that will require AM modulation AFAIK. 

yeah roger that. in the meantime I've learned a lot about radios while flying your wonderful TEW3 campaign, and so far, I've had zero issues with the radios since mission 3. I think if the wrong "FM" tag hit me later in the campaign, there wouldn't have been any worries with that.

I'm not done with the missions yet and I'm excited to see what's next.

thanks a lot @baltic_dragon for giving us such precious moments with DCS! Can't wait to check out your other campaigns.

Edited September 26, 2023 by Tom Kazansky

[baltic_dragon]

Thanks @Tom Kazansky and have fun with the rest. TEW is pretty old and I'd probably build it a bit differently today, but I still love it and had good fun flying it when I was doing a face-lift to the campaign recently. 

[Tom Kazansky]

5 minutes ago, baltic_dragon said:

Thanks @Tom Kazansky and have fun with the rest. TEW is pretty old and I'd probably build it a bit differently today, but I still love it and had good fun flying it when I was doing a face-lift to the campaign recently. 

I guess that's exactly why I love it. Campaigns that approach 100% military procedurals are for later... I bet the "Raven One"s will get me a lot more into this. I'll see.

Keep them coming. You've won one more BD fan to your long list.

[Tom Kazansky]

An addition to this subject:

the ARC-210 (in my current stable DCS) does something, that contributes to the confusion with AM/FM:

when programming the mission frequencies with the MFD/Comms/ARC-210 page, it automaticaly gives a frequency of 144.4 the FM tag and a frequency of 133.0 the AM. I don't know why.

So I changed the FM to AM by the modulation-OSB on that page and everything was fine.

Edited September 28, 2023 by Tom Kazansky

[Tom Kazansky]

On 9/28/2023 at 1:39 PM, Tom Kazansky said:

when programming the mission frequencies with the MFD/Comms/ARC-210 page, it automaticaly gives a frequency of 144.4 the FM tag and a frequency of 133.0 the AM. I don't know why.

Now I know why. The manual states: